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Savannah neighborhood's parking dilemma lands in city's lap

Steve Bisson/Savannah Moring News -Aurash Kheradmandi hopes to start a restaurant on the first floor of the building at Liberty Avenue and Drayton Street.

Steve Bisson/Savannah Moring News - Aurash Kheradmandi hopes to start a restaurant on the first floor of the building at Liberty Avenue and Drayton Street. On the right is the Hilton Savannah DeSoto Hotel.

Steve Bisson/Savannah Moring News -Aurash Kheradmandi hopes to start a restaurant on the first floor of the building at Liberty Avenue and Drayton Street.

A developing city, limited parking and frustrated residents will converge sooner rather than later.

In Savannah, a young entrepreneur’s request to rezone a downtown building has elected officials caught between encouraging private enterprise and residents who feel a restaurant is the last thing needed in a neighborhood with too few parking spaces.

The petitioner, Aurash Kheradmandi, wants to turn the vacant first level of a building at the corner of Drayton and East Liberty streets into a 72-seat restaurant. The space has sat empty for more than a year, and the city should be delighted there’s interest, says the Savannah native.

While the fight over one rezoning request may look like ordinary business in the everyday life of city hall, the storyline is not new. And with ongoing downtown redevelopment, continued growth at SCAD and expanded port activity in the works, such battles over parking could begin to pop up with increased regularity.

After tabling the rezoning request for a month, the Savannah City Council will take up the issue again on Thursday.

Residents at wit’s end

Esther Shaver, a longtime bookstore owner and downtown resident, is leading the charge against the proposed restaurant.

If the council approves the request, the area, which is already under a parking strain, will turn into a “nightmare of parking in the evening,” Shaver said at the Feb. 7 council meeting.

Shaver said the site is surrounded by the 12-story Drayton Tower, 15-story Hilton Savannah DeSoto hotel, Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, St. Vincent’s Academy, J. Christopher’s, The Public Kitchen & Bar, St. John’s Episcopal Church and the DeRenne and Lafayette apartments. All those entities, she said, need parking in addition to single-family home residents.

“If they have a restaurant, where are all of these people going to park?” she asked the council.

“The Hilton has events, St. John’s has events and tonight the cathedral has Mass; it’s just constant. And the people who live there, most of them do not have parking and most park on the streets.”

Even when there aren’t events making parking difficult to find, residents often have to park blocks away from their homes. That makes carrying groceries or other items home a greater chore than usual, according to Shaver, who has private residential parking.

Pam Sutton, who lives a block east of the building, said adding another restaurant in the neighborhood would exacerbate parking problems. Resident Heyward Gignilliat, who owns several properties in the area, said a restaurant would only add more congestion.

The nearby Liberty Parking Deck is for public and rental parking, according to residents.

While the city does grant residential decals for free on-street parking within a one block radius, they’re essentially made useless when parking spaces aren’t available. And though some of the nearby apartments and businesses have designated parking spaces, there’s not enough for all of their tenants or guests.

The turf battle’s landscape

Situated on the southeast corner of Drayton and East Liberty streets, 300 Drayton St. is across East Liberty Street from Drayton Tower and just east of the Hilton hotel. The surrounding area has a mixture of commercial, office and residential spaces.

There are no restaurants on the same block as the four-story brick building, although there are eateries and bars nearby, including Pinkie Master’s Lounge a block south.

The 12,000-square-foot building’s first floor formerly housed a men’s clothing store, in addition to a gelato eatery. The floors above contain offices.

Kheradmandi is requesting the city rezone the building from Residential Institutional Professional-A to Residential Institutional Professional-C. The primary difference is that the latter allows for restaurants, according to the Chatham County-Savannah Metropolitan Planning Commission, which recommends the rezoning request.

Marcus Lotson, a MPC development services planner, said Kheradmandi is required to have at least one parking space for every four seats in the restaurant.

With no street parking available, Kheradmandi would be required to have off-site parking at a parking lot or garage or seek a variance.

In the past six months, only one business has been granted a parking variance, according to the city.

Kheradmandi said he did not intend to seek a variance. Among possible parking options he said he’s considering is a “fairly large” private garage adjacent to the building on East Liberty Street.

A young man’s dream

The proposed “Granite Bar & Tapas” restaurant would be a moderately priced “date or after work” spot geared toward a mature crowd, where food would be served on rotating trays, Kheradmandi said.

He said he planned for it to seat about 70 people but could reduce seating if that was needed.

Kheradmandi, 28, owns a martial arts gym in Savannah Mall. While he has never owned a restaurant, he said his business partners are experienced. He told the council he began leasing the space in October and sent letters about his plans to various parties, including the Downtown Neighborhood Association.

In his eyes, he is being scapegoated for the city’s parking problems.

“I think I’m getting more attention because citywide there are other issues,” he said.

“I don’t think it has anything to do with parking. I think (protesters) just don’t want something else in the area. They like it quieter, and it’s understandable.”

However, Kheradmandi said there’s a market for the type of restaurant he envisions, one that is different from the current establishments on River and Congress streets.

A city feeling growing pains

In 2000, studies showed Savannah had at least a 2,000-space parking deficit, which was expected to increase as a result of growth and tourism.

Sean Brandon, bureau chief of the city’s Management Services, which oversees parking, said the city has since greatly changed downtown’s parking landscape, including constructing two parking garages and obtaining parking lots that have altogether added between 2,182 and 2,352 parking spaces.

In 2012, the city collected $11.6 million in parking revenue. That includes $2.5 million in citation revenue, which is 56.3 percent more than the $1.6 million collected in 2000.

The system is certainly not as strained as it once was, but there has been a definite uptick in space requests in the garage, Brandon acknowledged, noting the Whitaker, Bryan and Liberty streets garages have reached their monthly customer capacities.

“There has also been increased parking pressure in areas that previously didn't have it.”

Those areas include Habersham Village and Thomas Square.

In 2008, SCAD opened Arnold Hall in a renovated high school on Bull Street, which led to parking problems in the historic Thomas Square and Metropolitan neighborhoods as thousands of students descended on the area.

As a solution, the city agreed to limit parking times on several blocks and issued parking permits to residents and businesses. However, Brandon acknowledged to the council that designated residential parking is difficult to enforce.

On the other hand, parking is almost a good problem for any community to have because it means people want to live there and visit, he said.

“Downtown has been struggling through this issue for a while now, and that’s not a bad thing,” said Brandon.

“It has people living in it, people working in it and entertainment areas, and that means you have to utilize the parking that you have to its maximum effect in order to give everyone a chance to park relatively close to where they want to go.”

A persistent issue

At the Feb. 7 council meeting, Alderman Tony Thomas voiced concern about the future of downtown parking.

“With the concerns that have been expressed by citizens about parking already and with growth and economic development, we need to have a very clear understanding of how we’re going to progress not only in that area, but other parts of downtown,” he said.

Other aldermen shared similar sentiments.

Alderman Tom Bordeaux said Kheradmandi knew what he was getting when he leased the property.

“There’s got to be a line of demarcation, delineation, separation at some point and my feeling is we’ve bitten into that apple enough,” he said.

Mayor Pro Tem Van Johnson said placing a restaurant in the building sounds like a wonderful idea — unless you live in the neighborhood.

“I think this is a point where we have to recalibrate that balance between what makes business sense, but then making sure we preserve a livability portion for those individuals who live there every day,” Johnson said.

Only Alderman John Hall seemed to be in support of the restaurant.

Mayor Edna Jackson recommended that Kheradmandi and opponents of the restaurant meet to find a solution before the council voted on the rezoning request. The parties have yet to come to an agreement.

Either way, the city has a problem that needs to be confronted head on, said Alderwoman Mary Ellen Sprague.

“Whether we approve or don’t approve this restaurant, from what the residents are sounding, we have a problem already and this is just the thing that finally is blowing up,” she said.

IF YOU GO

The Savannah City Council meets at 2 p.m. Thursday at City Hall, 2 E. Bay St. Watch the meeting live at savannahnow.com and follow reporter @LesleyConn on Twitter.